Excerpts from the Press Briefing by Scott McClellan, September 10, 2003 (Full Transcript)

QUESTION: And there's been a lot of criticism -- I
shouldn't say that -- there's been some criticism of the Attorney
General's so-called Patriot II, if you will, tour that he's begun. Is
that really what's behind the President going into the issue today, to
try and give the Attorney General a little bit of juice on that?

MR. McCLELLAN: What's behind the President's actions is the
American people and protecting the American people from future attacks.
We want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to prevent
something like September 11th from ever happening again, and the
President will act on multiple fronts.

As I mentioned, the most important front is taking the fight to the
terrorists. And that's exactly what we have been doing. And we are
making great progress in that effort, going after the al Qaeda
leadership -- two-thirds of it that has been killed or captured. And we
are making great progress in Afghanistan. We have made significant
progress in Iraq, and the President -- which is now central to winning
the war on terrorism, a free a democratic Iraq will help bring about
peace and stability in a very important part of the region, to winning
the war on terrorism. But the President is always looking at ways, too,
that we can better secure the homeland and make America safer. And
that's what this is about.